Bad Marketers … ARE LACKING (Blogs, Content and SEO Value)

Bad Marketers … ARE LACKING (Blogs, Content and SEO Value)

Smart Marketing … Is Fresh, Relevant and Gives People a Reason to Learn More

Did you know blogging and adding fresh content to your website is the key to improving your search engine rankings?

Google LOVES new content. So do your customers and prospects. Original, relevant and engaging blog posts, video and other content is the secret to awesome search engine optimization and social marketing.

Smart marketing starts with a smart content strategy.

Consider these stats:

84% of people will look at your website before choosing to do business with you.

Your website is arguably the most important part of your marketing and sales funnel. But we often see company websites are overlooked. Many companies look at them as a necessary investment instead of the company’s top sales rep that works 24/7/365 – never taking a day off!

Content marketing leaders get 7.8 times more site traffic than non-leaders.

According to Neil Patel (Co-Founder of popular marketing tools like Crazy Egg and KISSMetrics), companies that invest in content marketing and become content leaders in their industry earn nearly 8 times the amount of traffic (and leads) to their website compared to those that lag behind. Content drives leads.

Content marketing generates 3 times as many leads as outbound marketing!

Not only does content marketing drive 3 times more leads, it costs 62% less than outbound marketing according to Content Marketing Institute. This just makes sense, as you generate more content and become a thought leader, you gain more trust. If you can gain more trust, you get more leads AND you convert a much higher percentage of those leads to sales. That same study from Content Marketing Institute found that companies that have embraced a strategic content marketing approach have conversion rates that are 6 times higher than non-adopters!

How to be a content marketing superstar in 7 steps:

We’re so glad you asked because it’s something we’re very passionate about! Here are a few steps to get you on your way to becoming a leading content marketer in your industry:

1. Before you do anything, shut up and listen.

Become a consumer of content in your industry. Seek out industry leaders and connect with them on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. Find out who already has the ear of your audience and engage with the content they are sharing.

2. Do your research.

You didn’t think you were getting away without a bit of homework, did you? In order to be an effective content marketer you do need to do some homework. Take time to learn what your clients biggest challenges are. Here are a few suggestions:

Ask them – yep, every time you talk with them on the phone ask what problems they are facing.

Use SurveyMonkey.com to generate a survey and ask your audience.

Enter a keyword topic in BuzzSumo.com and see what related content people are engaging with on social sites.

Use AnswerThePublic.com to find out what questions people are typing into Google related to your industry, products or service – then answer those questions with content!

3. Plan things out.

If you don’t have a plan, plan to fail! We all have the best of intentions to write content or post things to social media. But if you don’t create an editorial calendar, assign tasks and hold people accountable (including yourself), it won’t get done. The biggest failure we see in content marketing is lack of consistency and sporadic posting. If you can’t handle content creation internally, get some help. (Cheap plug – the team at BARQAR ghost writes amazing content for nearly 300 companies, learn more about our content marketing services.)

4. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

An effective content marketing strategy looks at multiple types of content and platforms to post on. Think about your target audience and choose the platforms that are most relevant to them. Mix in written content, images, video, podcasts, live streaming, social media engagement, email marketing and more to get your message in front as many people as possible. This post is a perfect example, here’s our content marketing strategy with this one piece of content:- SEO: Make sure the post is search engine optimized and shows up on search engines.

Social Media: We will pull 5-6 key takeaways from this article and repurpose this on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn (where our audience resides).

Video: With each post of our Smart Marketing Series we create a Facebook Live video that gets great engagement.

Email Marketing: We will leverage this content in our monthly email newsletter. If you’re not signed up yet , get on the Smart Marketer newsletter list now and start driving more business leads!

Direct Mail: Kick it old school! Direct mail volume has dropped dramatically over the last 5 years. For savvy marketers that means a well-designed and consistent direct mail campaign can get great results. We will turn this article into a nice magazine-style article and send it along with a personalized letter to our top prospects.

5. Create a hub.

Diversity is key to visibility, but a centralized hub is what’s going to convert visibility to leads. With all of your content marketing efforts, drive people back to your website where they can take action. Don’t let your audience only consume content on Facebook or YouTube—drive them back to your website! You’ve done all the hard work creating great content, you need to get them back to your website so you can enjoy the fruits of your labor. Use all the tactics we outlined in Step 4 to do that!

6. Analyze and adjust.

Not every piece of content is going to be a homerun. Test different messages, formats, styles, mediums, etc., and see what gets the attention of your audience. Use Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics and more to gauge the success of your marketing efforts. By looking at actual data you can take the guesswork out of marketing. You will know exactly how much value each marketing tactic provided, then you can make smarter marketing decisions moving forward.

7. Call BARQAR Marketing.

Ok, another blatant sales pitch awesome call-to-action. We eat, breath and sleep content marketing and will help you craft a content marketing strategy that drives leads and conversions. Learn more about our blogging, social and content marketing services now.